Re: Chess Rating question, what does it mean?
I imagine the fact that only serious chess players join FIDE and pay to play in live tournaments, while thousands of clueless beginners play online for free or cheap, is enough to inflate the ratings by a few hundred points - comepletely aside from whether ratings are inflated by other tactics. Remember, "everyone" starts at the same initial score, but the definition of "everyone" is not the same on each site and for each game.
The situation doesn't seem so different from how the same players' ratings on casual and serious backgammon sites tend to differ by about 200. (With 1500 as the baseline, and 2200ish being a top player - the ratings aren't as spread out as chess.)
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